Late this spring, Donna Lynne, the former executive vice president of the Kaiser Foundation Health Plan and Kaiser Foundation Hospitals, received an important call—one that her “old fashioned” values couldn’t refuse—to return to government and serve under Gov. John Hickenlooper as Colorado’s lieutenant governor and chief operating officer.
Lynne was enjoying her work—overseeing an $8 billion-plus budget, 1.3 million members and 16,000 employees. She’d led in the community in a number of ways since relocating from New York in 2005, from serving as the Chamber’s board chair in 2013-14 to working with the governor on his 2010 transition team and two task forces. The opportunity offered by Gov. Hickenlooper provided an entirely new way to get involved as the second in command for the state of Colorado.
We caught up with the former Chamber chair to hear all about her new job.
Business Altitude: What was your first thought when you got the call from the governor that you were his choice for lieutenant governor?
Donna Lynne: I would use the following words: flattered, intrigued and then maybe a little conflicted—conflicted because I was really happy at Kaiser. I was doing some very important work for them and they’ve been a great company for me to work for. I guess maybe the fourth word that goes along with intrigued is interested because I love learning new things, and I saw this as an opportunity to take some of the skills I’ve acquired over the years and build on them, learning more about the state of Colorado and government.
BA: What was your first day on the job like?
DL: My first full day was an interesting one because I elected to go on a bill-signing tour with the governor for two days. That took us to multiple places around the state. … In one day I went from Grand Junction to Rifle to Montrose to Durango to Gunnison—so that was quite a day!
BA: You’re in a unique position as lieutenant governor and COO of the state. How will your experience in the private sector and the Chamber influence your work on behalf of the state?
DL: One of the key things about this job is to balance operational issues with policy issues. I’m doing that by working closely with the governor’s Chief of Staff Doug Friednash. It’s not that policy and operations fall into two different buckets; they’re very connected.
I try to put on the hat every day of the consumer. The consumer could be the legislators who have to make decisions about how we spend our money. They represent voices in the community that maybe are a little closer at hand than I may experience in the lieutenant governor’s office. The consumers are also the 5.5 million people who interact with us online, on the telephone, by mail and in person. I want to make sure I get their perspective about how well we are doing our jobs.
BA: What do you see as the most pressing issue facing Colorado—and what role can the business community play in helping address it?
DL: The most pressing issue we have in the state, from my perspective, is a funding issue. We have a lot of needs to respond to, particularly as our population is growing. Transportation needs take years to scope out, plan and get approval for. We have an expanding appetite for investment in technology and we have to make that investment sometimes at the front end. Hopefully there’s always a return on that investment, but you need to make that decision early on before you can prove services are going to be delivered effectively. Certainly, there’s some national data around how we fund K-12 education, higher education and a number of other services where Colorado doesn’t even rank in the middle of the pack [Colorado ranks 48 of 50 for higher education funding]. I do think we have some funding challenges in the state that we need to acknowledge and address.
On the technology side, when I talk about consumers and their expectations, it’s challenging for people to take off from work to obtain government services—and maybe they have a question about a bill that they’ve gotten or there’s other information or a document they need—but to the extent that we can make those available online, I think that’s something that we’re
all used to doing. … I think the state needs to be as nimble as private industries when it comes to technology.
I think the business community was very supportive of the effort on the hospital provider fee. They really rallied around that issue. … I want to articulate to the business community what we’re spending our money on, what we’re getting for it, how we are being efficient and effective. So I think the more the business community knows what the government is doing to be more government-facing, the better off we are.
BA: You’re a known outdoorswoman and have climbed all 58 of Colorado’s fourteeners. Do you do business while on these outdoor trips? Tell us about one your favorite meetings held outside a boardroom.
DL: When climbing fourteeners, I generally don’t do business because it’s pretty serious and I don’t want to be distracted. One of the things [I enjoyed] is the Vail Ski Challenge, which I did … to support nonprofits. That was organizing a team of businesspeople who were willing to spend some personal time to support other nonprofits. In the course of that, sometimes I got a lot of business meetings conducted—while you’re on a chair lift is a lot safer to conduct business conversations than when you’re on a fourteener.
BA: What’s your favorite thing about living and working in Colorado?
DL: What I anticipated when I moved here, like a lot of people, is there are great opportunities for recreation. What I didn’t anticipate was just how welcoming the community was. It is easy to get engaged in the Colorado community. So, if you want to volunteer, you can volunteer. If you want to be on boards, you can be on boards. There don’t seem to be the same kind of barriers to participation that there sometimes can be in other parts of the country. Colorado is a great place to work, play and network!
Sara Crocker is the communications manager for the Denver Metro Chamber.
This was originally published in the summer issues of Business Altitude. Click here to read the full issue.